Wednesday, 12 June 2013

Another sort of morning

I wouldn't want you to think that a nurse's life is all about early mornings. I am working Long Day shifts at the moment, which are from 7:30am to 8:30pm (or 8pm to 8am if it is a night shift). They are certainly long, tough shifts, with a very early start - but I only have to work three shifts most weeks, so I get plenty of time off too. I rather like this pattern of working, and it fits in well with having older children - I still feel as though I see plenty of them, and can help them with homework, chauffeur them to ballet and nag them to do chores.

On my days off it usually pans out like this:

6:30am - Graham's alarm goes off. He gets up, brings me a cup of tea in bed, and I start to think about waking up.

7:15am - I wake up Cam and Olivia. They grunt at me and try to hide under their duvets.

7:30am - Cam comes downstairs, eats half a melon and some toast and then goes to watch Youtube videos of other people playing computer games.

7:45am - Olivia comes downstairs and makes her packed lunch. She eats a bowl of yogurt and some toast, then floats around trying to find shoes, hairbrush, school cardie and her green pen.

8:00am - I feed the hens and collect three eggs from them. I have a cup of tea and some yogurt.

8:25am - I leave to take Olivia to school by car. Cam leaves the house about 5 minutes after us and walks to his school.

8:55am - On the way back from Olivia's school I park the car at the edge of Epping Forest and go for a 5k run. The gorse and the broom is in full flower - so bright it hurts my eyes. I see a heron flying overhead, and listen to the Northern Exposure version of Last Train to Lhasa on my headphones - one of my all time favourite pieces of music.

9:35am - I get home and have a long soak in the bath, accompanied by a whole pile of magazines and Radio 4.

10:00am - coffee and a croissant in the garden, followed by the rest of the day to myself.

Even though I often do not have the time to reply to everybody, I really appreciate all your comments so much - thank you for taking the time to read my blog and share your thoughts on what I've written.